(62B) November 1936: After the disturbances of 1936 with the six month Arab General Strike and the beginnings of the Arab Rebellion the British Government sends another Royal Commission under Lord Peel to study the situation. This shot shows the offices of the Royal Commission in Jerusalem and a man entering the building perhaps to give evidence to the Commission: this does not seem to be High Commissioner Wauchope as catalogued by Axelrod.

(65A) December 1936: The members of the Peel Royal Commission visit Rehovoth in a convoy of cars. Peel, Rumbold and Coupland (the leading figures of the Commission) are seen chatting in long shot.

(67A) December 1936: During the course of the Arab General Strike of April to October 1936 the Jews began to build their own shallow-water jetty harbour at Tel Aviv. Here High Commissioner Wauchope and the Mayor of Tel Aviv, Rokach, inspect the construction work in progress.

(85D) May 1937: The poor Jewish quarter in Jerusalem, poor kids playing in a community centre. It was not just a case of continuous progress and prosperity with the growth of the Jewish national home in Palestine.

Extracts from a series of newsreels produced for the Jewish audience in Palestine, 1929-1947.

Notes

Documentation/associated material: Axelrod catalogue (held in photocopy form by Film and Video Archive).

Remarks: the Peel Commission is perhaps the best remembered commission of all, at least by Jews, as it was the first official body to say that the promises made to both arabs and Jews were irreconcilable, that the mandate was unworkable and so to recommend partition, ie the creation of independent Jewish and Palestinian states.

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